These lesser-known — and in some cases even ordinary — people are just as much a part of black history, and each played a role in shaping the narrative of black life in America.

“Absolutely you should know about Rosa Parks, absolutely you should know about Martin Luther King,” but the fact is that there are and were amazing black people and communities everywhere, Arizona State University history professor Matthew DelmontMatthew Delmont was recently named the director of ASU’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies. said. Making an effort to learn more about what that looks like on an everyday basis, he added, “can help you re-envision what American history looks like.”

That was the impetus behind Delmont’s yearlong digital history project, Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers. Each day for a year, beginning on Martin Luther King Day in 2016, he posted a historical article from a black newspaper on the project website, sometimes tweeting them out as well. The articles featured everyday stories of black people in America.

The idea was to treat black history as a yearly subject — as Delmont put it, “black history 365.” One of his goals with Black Quotidian was to address how relegating black history to a single month makes it difficult to change the mainstream narrative of black life in America.

“You can only do so much in a month, but if you treat this as something that we should be approaching daily, it allows you to talk about everyday stories of black history and everyday stories of African-American life,” he said.

ASU Foundation Professor of English Neal Lester agrees. In his American literature course, Lester teaches black writers, including Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, as part of American canon, instead of separating them into their own category. To do that, Lester said, would suggest to him “that people don’t quite see this as a necessary part to be integrated into the fabric of the everyday. That somehow, it still needs to be teased out and separated.”

Before there was Black History Month, there was Negro History Week, established in 1926 at the behest of historian Carter G. Woodson. It was a “groundswell” movement, Delmont said, with black newspapers encouraging readers to write to Woodson for pamphlets on black history.

The reason behind Woodson’s and other historians’ and intellectuals’ push for the holiday was two-fold: First, at the time, there was almost total exclusion and distortion of black history being taught in schools — exclusion in that there was no mention of black people with any agency, like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas, and distortion in that slavery was presented as having been beneficial for black people.

Second, Delmont (shown below) explained, “There was a sense that history brings power. That if you have a more fully-formed sense of pioneers of black history – in terms of sciences, in terms of agriculture, in terms of business — that that can empower young people, and can empower any community member to envision different possibilities for their own future.”

Each day for a year, beginning on Martin Luther King Day in 2016, ASU history professor Matthew Delmont (pictured in May) posted a historical article from a black newspaper on the Black Quotidian project website — stories that featured everyday people in America in an effort to help change the mainstream narrative of black life. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU Now

From there, it spread through communities and across the country as teachers, religious leaders and parents took it upon themselves to share black history with their students, congregations and children. Fifty years later, in 1976, it became a month-long celebration following the civil rights movement, and schools began incorporating it into their curriculum.

Today, Delmont said, “We’ve come a long way in terms of presenting black history more accurately in mainstream textbooks — almost everyone who’s been through the American high school system knows Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks — but beyond that, there’s not really a deeper sense of what African American history has been about.

“It isn’t just about civil rights; it isn’t just about wonderful leaders or horrible things happening. It was very ordinary.” That was another thing Delmont hoped to do with Black Quotidian: “I wanted to reclaim the ability of black people to be ordinary.”

One story he came across through the project was that of Juanita Blocker, the first professional African-American bowler. “She’s not someone who’s going to get attention in most Black History Month retrospectives,” Delmont said, but her story is still one of the many threads that make up the fabric of American history.

“Any textbook you take, you should be able to thread through some aspect of African-American history,” he added. “And you could say the same thing about women’s history, and Latino history, etc. There’s no one single version of American history. It’s a story of different threads that you’re trying to pull together.”

Some of those other threads include the stories of Welford Wilson, a young boy from Harlem who took home the championship at the New York City Junior High School’s Oratory competition in 1929; Chrystal Tulli, a teacher at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Tennessee, who made the paper for directing a school play in 1932; and Francois Andre, who directed fashion shows and theater performances in L.A. during the 1950s.

“Exposing people to these histories can open up different perspectives,” Delmont said. A lack of exposure, however, can lead to the perpetuation of misunderstanding and stereotypes. “If you don’t have these sort of inter-personal relationships to understand people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, it’s hard to get a sense of what life might look like, what America might look like through their eyes.”

Emma Greguska

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Like any new technology, artificial intelligence holds great promise to help humans shape their future, and it is also holds great danger in that it could eventually lead to the rise of machines over humanity, according to some futurists. So which course will it be for AI and what can be done now to help shape its trajectory? These are some of the questions and issues that will be explored by the...

Will we control artificial intelligence or will it control us?

ASU's Krauss, experts from Skype, Microsoft to debate future of AI

February 23, 2017

Like any new technology, artificial intelligence holds great promise to help humans shape their future, and it is also holds great danger in that it could eventually lead to the rise of machines over humanity, according to some futurists. So which course will it be for AI and what can be done now to help shape its trajectory?

These are some of the questions and issues that will be explored by the Origins Project at Arizona State University in the “Great Debate: The Future of Artificial Intelligence – Who’s in Control?” It will be held at 7 p.m. Feb. 25, in the Gammage Auditorium on the Tempe campus. Download Full Image

“The purpose of this event is not to generate fear of the future, because AI can be a marvelous boon for humankind,” said Lawrence Krauss, director of the Origins Project. “But fortune favors the prepared mind, and looking realistically at where AI is now and where it might go is part of this. The evening will be provocative and fascinating.”

Joining Krauss on stage will be Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft’s Redmond Lab. Horvitz is a computer scientist and technical fellow at Microsoft. His research covers the theoretical and practical challenges of machine learning and inference, human-computer interaction, AI and more.

Also joining Krauss will be Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype. Tallinn is an Estonian programmer, investor and physicist. He is partner and co-founder of the development company Bluemoon, a Board of Sponsors member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and one of the founders of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the Future of Life Institute. Tallinn strongly promotes the study of existential risk and AI, and the long-term planning and mitigation of potential challenges.

“Anyone who has an interest in AI, its future, and the future of humanity will want to hear what these panelists have to say,” Krauss added.

Tickets for the "Great Debate: The Future of Artificial Intelligence – Who’s in Control" range from $12 to $45. They can be found on line through Tickemaster.com and at the ASU Gammage Box Office, 480-965-3434. ASU students can obtain free tickets (two tickets per student ID to be picked up the Gammage box office) for this event.